Typical production and manufacturing departments have a
small percentage of PCBs that require fault location to
component level after assembly. Whether your volume is
high or low, Polar’s PFL Fault Locators can help you locate
these faults rapidly and cost effectively

Polar's PFL780 provides engineers and technicians with In-Circuit Functional Test for many types of digital ICs supported by the PFL library as well a Nodal Impedance Signature Test to any type of component. The functional test can identify a defective IC and the nodal impedance test will show a difference compared to a "gold PCB" that can indicate the cause of failure.

PFL760 Power off nodal impedance test (ASA)*
**(PFL760
Available only on special order please contact factory)

* Nodal impedance test is a proven method of troubleshooting electronic
circuit cards, and is independent of the technology under test. Nodal
impedance test is also called V/I trace test or ASA - Analog signature
analysis. The technique is equally effective in locating faults
on both analog and Digital PCBs.

Successful Board Repair to Component level

Would you like to reduce repair and maintenance costs of electronic printed circuit
boards? Using components costing just a few dollars,
boards that may currently be costing you hundreds — even
thousands — of dollars can now be successfully repaired.

The PFL780 and 760 use IC clips as a test interface. This makes them
ideal for the service and maintenance of legacy systems. If you
need to work on high density surface mount PCBs you should consider
the GRS500 as a more suitable
alternative.

Plant and process maintenance

With no need for schematics, or expert circuit knowledge, Polar Fault Locators allow
end-users reliant on electronics-based capital equipment
to adopt far more cost-effective maintenance strategies.
Most PCBs can be repaired by replacing a low-cost component!

Electronic
& computer manufacturers

PCBs returned from the field
for repair can be checked rapidly and safely: between 60–90% of failure modes can be diagnosed automatically
via PC-based learn-and-compare tests.

Professional service providers

Integrating digital In Circuit Test (ICT) with nodal impedance analysis in the
PFL780 creates the ideal high-throughput tool for repair; the vast bulk of
failures may be pin-pointed in a single test.

Telecoms & defence organizations

Long life-cycle equipment is maintained easily using Polar Fault Locators. PCBs can be
auto-compared against stored signatures or a working example, or probed interactively. All component technologies, from resistors to ASICs, can be tested. If you need
to work on high density surface mount PCBs you should consider the GRS500 as a more suitable alternative.

Manufacturing
support

You
can use Polar Fault Locators standalone, or after
pass/fail testing on an ATE system, to perform
component-level fault diagnosis on PCBs immediately after
assembly. This minimizes repair and rework on faulty
boards.

Familiar graphical interface

The PFL software is a true 32-bit
application running under Windows 95/98/NT/2000, and provides many
enhanced features over other fault-finding products.

By using a highly
successful fault location technique, already proven by
thousands of users in every sector of industry, you can
overcome many of the obstacles that prevented you from
undertaking repair in the past:

Missing documentation?

You can fault-find
without circuit diagrams or schematics. Though if you do have them
available it will make life simpler.

Different types of PCBs and
components

You can diagnose faults
to almost any type of component — whether it is analog or digital i.c.
or a simple triac or transistor.

Specialist engineering skills

Polar Fault Locators
are extremely easy to use, however PCB troubleshooting is a skilled
process which does require practice and training your repair yields will
maximise with increasing exprerience.

Safety

You can find most of
the faults without power applied to the PCB — this is
ideal for power supplies.

How is this achieved?

A Polar Fault Locator
is connected to a PC running PFL software. For any type
of component, the system learns good
"signatures" which can be compared
automatically with those of a faulty PCB. Analog
signatures are learned for all components and, where
applicable, digital signatures will test the
functionality of the device. A comprehensive datalogging
system allows you to focus on the faults which occur most
frequently.

Even if you do not have
a good PCB for comparison, the PFL780 lets you verify the
in-circuit operation of digital ICs by comparing their
signatures against those held in an internal library
supplied with the instrument. The PFL780 automatically
compensates for how the ICs are wired in circuit.

Live mode lets you
compare signatures from a faulty board with those of a
known-good board, to quickly locate the fault. You can
easily change ranges and frequencies and set up the
Pulser to functionally test transistors, SCRs, triacs and opto-isolators.

You can store all the
signatures of a known-good board on the PC. If you are
using a PFL780, all appropriate functional digital
results will also be included. When there is a faulty
board, you can test each of the components by comparing
their signatures with the stored versions. The instrument
can do this automatically, and confirm whether the
component has PASSED or FAILED.

Tests are made by
connecting a probe or an IC test clip to the components on
the PCB. By pressing a footswitch or clicking the mouse,
the component's signatures are acquired and displayed on
the PC screen and automatically compared to those
previously learned. This method is successful for all
types of component, ranging from SMD (surface-mount
devices) to passive components such as transformers.

Both the PFL760 and
PFL780 are equipped with a 128-channel scanner, which
facilitates one-pass testing of edge connectors to
provide fast indication of the general area of PCB
failure. The scanner also significantly accelerates the
acquisition and comparison of signatures on large
pin-count devices.

Polar Fault Locators
can be used by those who have limited experience of fault-finding. However, if you have an electronics
background, you can obtain detailed information of both
analog and digital functional signatures to assist in
complex fault location.

When you have to
fault-find on a single board and do not have a good board
for comparison, you can use the PFL780's Autotest
feature, which verifies the correct operation of many
digital ICs and automatically compensates for how they
are wired in circuit. The PFL780 will automatically learn
how the IC is connected and then check the truth table of
the IC against its internal library.